Psychodynamic Therapy

It is important to look back our relationships with our caregivers to explore how those impact the relationships we form now.

Psychodynamic therapy is one of many approaches I use. It looks for patterns in your life that aren't serving you well. Together we'll work to identify these patterns, understand them and help you make conscious changes.

Psychodynamic therapeutic approaches look for themes and underlying patterns in the ways we relate to ourselves and others. I follow your lead as we connect the various life experiences you’ve had. Overtime, you’ll experience greater levels of insight and awareness of the patterns that have been helpful as well as those that are no longer serving you. This creates depth of understanding and lasting transformation.

Psychodynamic therapy is based on the concept that talking about problems can help people learn and develop the skills they need to address them. It is an approach that embraces the multifaceted aspects of an individual’s life. It strives to help people understand the sometimes unknown or unconscious motivations behind difficult feelings and behaviors. Having this insight can lead to symptom relief, help people feel better, and allow them to make better choices.

My work is has a large psychodynamic influence. This means it is depth work focused on supporting you to increase awareness of patterns or behaviors that may have been needed in the past but now are holding you back. By bringing what is often unconscious into awareness, you are able to move toward the experience you want to create with much greater self-acceptance and ease.

I have training in applying the principles and techniques of Psychodynamic Therapy and ensure that I obtain continual training around this approach.

While exploring current stressors and worries, I will invite you to go deeper and seek to better understand how past experiences are shaping current concerns, explore patterns that keep repeating, and work to better understand your own inner experiences and how they are continuing to shape your experience within the world. By better understanding our roles within our life, many people start to feel less stuck, and more in control.

My primary orientation is rooted psychodynamic therapy. I believe that past relationships, especially those with early attachment figures, shape current relationships; both with the self and with others.

I use a psychodynamic framework with my clients to assist them in exploring a full range of their experiences and emotions, helping them to build access to multiple parts of the self without shame, and to think more creatively and openly about their past rather than continuing to repeat it.

For those looking for longer term therapy or reasons to the "why" of their behaviors, thoughts, feelings, or experiences, psychodynamic looks at our childhood experiences and our unmet needs. It's not about blaming caregivers, but understanding our younger selves better so we can provide what that part of us needs today to reduce reenactment of unmet childhood needs. This therapy relies a lot on the therapeutic relationship.

Using a psychodynamic approach helps clients make connections between past experiences, family history, and present behavior. Sometimes understanding our inner-workings can help us understand our deepest needs.

Psychodynamic therapy is based on key principles: Unconscious motivations — such as social pressure, biology, and psychology — can affect behavior. Experience shapes personality, which can, in return, affect an individual's response to that experience. Past experiences affect the present. The goals of psychodynamic therapy are client self-awareness and understanding of the influence of the past on present behavior.

I have extensive training in the theories of analytical psychology; I draw from the work of CG Jung as well as the post Jungian. I also combine my interest in wholistic theories that interweave mind and body.

I believe in the importance of how we were brought up including the circumstances of our family in the broader social context as an important influence in how we are in our current lives. When I was in training in the 1970's this was the standard treatment approach.

I use the core principles of numerous teachings to form an eclectic style of therapy, one that can be altered to fit each individual personality I come across. I work to provide the resources necessary for my clients to understand themselves in a deeper and more profound way.